


To be Unmade

by darkling59



Series: Annals of the Incomplete [32]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:50:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3549950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkling59/pseuds/darkling59
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Abby is on the team, Connor is not, and Helen has made a few strategic changes to the timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To be Unmade

Abby stood in the shelter of the trees for a moment, staring into the clearing and hardly daring to breathe. That…creature had Rex! For a long minute she stood paralyzed, worried about her pet. Then the little ‘saur chirped and the bipedal creature it was hovering over yelped in surprise, jumping backwards and ducking down.

Brow furrowing in surprise, the zookeeper felt the knot of fear in her stomach ease. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem very hostile.

She watched as Rex swooped down, still chirping inquisitively. The larger animal (bipedal, presumed reptilian, possibly a sub-strain of velociraptor based on its size, probably not based on its docility) ducked but continued staring upwards. After a moment it actually reached towards Rex, with curiosity rather than hostility.

To Abby’s surprise, the little dino landed on the outstretched limb! Rex was nothing if not a good judge of character and for him to land on another animal was unheard of. Frowning, she looked closer and huffed in embarrassed amusement; it wasn’t a dinosaur at all! The ‘mysterious creature’ was a tall young man with dark hair. His clothes were woody, dark colors which mimicked the colors of most primeval predators she had come across...Though there was something downright _odd_ about how he was standing...

Still laughing softly at herself, Abby walked out into the clearing. She was just glad nobody else had seen her slip up.

“Excuse me!” she shouted. The young man’s head snapped up and she got a momentary glimpse of wide eyes and pale skin before Rex leaped off his arm into the air and the stranger ducked and covered his head with his arms in surprise.

Rex circled overhead, distracting her attention for a moment. Reassured that he was okay, Abby was able to turn her attention to other matters. Namely what a random civilian was doing alone in an isolated, restricted area full of anomalies and dinosaurs.

Looking back to the intruder, she couldn’t help an amused smile from spreading across her face. He was kneeling in the grass, gazing up at Rex’s antics with amazement. The dark hair and pale skin that had been evident from the tree line resolved themselves into floppy brown hair and…okay, his skin was still pale but it suited him. He was wearing black gloves and shoes, dark green pants, a beige shirt, and a green jacket. Abby probably could have picked out more specifics but her eyes were drawn to his expression. He looked absolutely amazed and delighted, not scared at all, and his over expressiveness made the emotions contagious. The floppy hair and expressive face made him cute in a puppyish way.

“Excuse me.” This time she was quieter, more dignified.

“That’s a dinosaur.”

“This is a restricted area.”

“That’s a dinosaur!”

“You really shouldn’t be here.”

“THAT’S A DINOSAUR!” she flinched at the sheer volume of his last statement.

He jumped to his feet and whirled to face her, pointing up at Rex. The amazement had been replaced with delight.

“It’s a real, live dinosaur!”

“He’s-”

But he wasn’t listening; Rex had swooped down and landed on the ground at his feet. When he bent down to pet the reptile, Abby heaved an exasperated sigh and prepared to try again.

Then she noticed something…strange. The action of bending over caused the hair on the back of his neck to part revealing what should have been pale skin. Instead, there was something dark green and…scaly looking. Sharpening her gaze, Abby realized that it WAS scales.

She took a step back and then raked her gaze slowly over his body. This time she noticed how his garments covered almost every inch of his skin beneath his neck and the floppy hair concealed his hairline. Now conscious of his ‘armor’, she was able to search for flaws and the knot of suspicion that had all but dissipated began to reform in her stomach. His clothes had ridden up in two other places: on his wrist, between the right glove and jacket sleeve and on his ankle where the left pants leg had slid up...and she'd been right, there _was_ something off about the way his leg moved. There was a dark band of scales around his wrist, melding into healthy pink skin right before the sleeve and there were patches of scales on the sides of his ankle, leaving the back pink and human. Having found some chinks, she took a closer look at his face, trying not to be scared of what she might find.

The first thing she noticed was that his mouth was slightly open in wonder and his teeth were longer than they should be, sharper too. Not enough to throw off his expression but, when combined with the scales, enough to be significant. She thought there were patches of scales hidden by the length and color of his hair but they were too dark to be able to find the differences.

Suddenly wary, she took a step backwards. Normal people did not have scales. If he had come through the anomaly, he wasn’t human. Well, probably anyways. If he hadn’t come through then there was still something seriously wrong with him.

“It’s a dinosaur!” He looked up at her happily.

“Um…yeah. I mean yes, it is.”

Suddenly remembering his manners, the man (creature?) stood up and brushed his hands off, adopting a sheepish expression as he turned towards her.

“He’s awesome.”

Against her better judgment, she found herself relaxing to his smile.

“His name is Rex.”

“Cool! Oh, I’m Connor by the way.” He stuck his hand out. She automatically reached out to take it but froze halfway there.

Claws. They were impossible to miss with his hand stretched out; he had long curving claws at least a centimeter long poking out of holes in the fingers of his gloves.

He noticed her hesitation and looked down in confusion. Then he froze, realizing what she had seen and all the blood drained from his face. Abby only noticed when his hand began to tremble slightly. Looking up, she was taken aback at his terrified expression. He was scared of her?

Noticing he was about to pull away and probably take off, she decided to do something either extremely stupid or extremely brave. She thrust out her hand to meet his handshake. The claws were surprisingly gentle as they tapped the back of her palm.

“Abby Maitland.”

“Uh…huh?”

“My name is Abby Maitland.”

“Oh…Oh! Yeah, I’m Connor.”

She smirked patiently. “I know.”

“Huh?”

“You told me.”

“Right.” He blushed and dropped her hand. At least he no longer looked like he was going to turn tail and flee. “So you have a dinosaur? That’s awesome! Some sort of diapsid, right? Possibly a coelurosauravus or tanycolagreus. But they died out in the Permian Era! Where’d you get one? Is it liked a mutation of some kind? A genetic experiment? An alien?”

Abby just stood, stunned into silence by his babbling. He certainly knew about dinosaurs, although not about anomalies. The way he said ‘genetic experiment’ was a little strange but not as if he knew anything, it was almost nostalgic.

Ah.

“Genetic experiment?”

“Is he? That’s-.”

“No. Are you?”

“What?! That’s crazy!” He was looking scared again. “Look, I’d better go. Good luck with your dinosaur!”

“Connor…”

But he was already walking quickly across the clearing, running away without actually running. He reached the tree line a good seven yards in front of her.

“Connor, wait!”

But it was too late, he was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> How is there not a dinosaur!Connor fic in this fandom? Did I miss it? I mean, I know this one doesn't go all the way (although I think there are a few snippets tucked away in other documents that beg to differ...) but I thought there would be more for some reason...


End file.
